


your hips, your lips, they're mine

by deathsweetqueen



Series: Iron Husbands Bingo 2020 [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Dirty Talk, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, POV James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Twink Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:07:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28802535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathsweetqueen/pseuds/deathsweetqueen
Summary: Jim doesn’t actually find out much beforehand.All he gets is a message on his phone, saying, Come quick, there’s an emergency.He’s a little pissed, honestly, that they would try and gatekeep when there’s a fucking emergency, but he flies to the tower, with his lungs in his throat, because he’s terrified that someone, one of the Avengers, is going to come out of the penthouse to tell him that Tony’s dead, that he died fighting a fucking jacuzzi monster or something, and Jim’s going to have to deal with the aftermath, with this whole which is suddenly devoid of light and laughter and love and heat because Tony’s dead.When he lands on the tarmac outside the penthouse, JARVIS begins removing his armour for him, like Jim knows that he does for Tony.The armour disappears into the innards of the tower, but always at quick reach if either Jim or Tony want it.“Good afternoon, Colonel Rhodes,” JARVIS says, pleasantly, when he enters the blissfully air-conditioned penthouse.He breathes a sigh of relief, because he knows that JARVIS wouldn’t have that happy tenor to his voice if something had gone wrong, if Tony was hurt or dead and lying somewhere.
Relationships: James "Rhodey" Rhodes/Tony Stark
Series: Iron Husbands Bingo 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2017885
Comments: 19
Kudos: 235
Collections: Iron Husbands Bingo, Tony Stark Bingo Mark IV





	your hips, your lips, they're mine

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "time travel" square (I2) of the Iron Husbands Bingo 2020.
> 
> Title: your hips, your lips, they're mine  
> Collaborator Name: Simi  
> Card Number: 4066  
> Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28802535  
> Square Filled: S1 - Bruce Banner  
> Ship/Main Pairing: Tony/Rhodey  
> Rating: Explicit  
> Major Tags: de-aging, twink Tony, explicit sexual content.  
> Summary: Jim doesn’t actually find out much beforehand.  
> All he gets is a message on his phone, saying, Come quick, there’s an emergency.  
> He’s a little pissed, honestly, that they would try and gatekeep when there’s a fucking emergency, but he flies to the tower, with his lungs in his throat, because he’s terrified that someone, one of the Avengers, is going to come out of the penthouse to tell him that Tony’s dead, that he died fighting a fucking jacuzzi monster or something, and Jim’s going to have to deal with the aftermath, with this whole which is suddenly devoid of light and laughter and love and heat because Tony’s dead.  
> When he lands on the tarmac outside the penthouse, JARVIS begins removing his armour for him, like Jim knows that he does for Tony.  
> The armour disappears into the innards of the tower, but always at quick reach if either Jim or Tony want it.  
> “Good afternoon, Colonel Rhodes,” JARVIS says, pleasantly, when he enters the blissfully air-conditioned penthouse.  
> He breathes a sigh of relief, because he knows that JARVIS wouldn’t have that happy tenor to his voice if something had gone wrong, if Tony was hurt or dead and lying somewhere.  
> Word Count: 7100

Jim doesn’t actually find out much beforehand.

All he gets is a message on his phone, saying, _Come quick, there’s an emergency._

He’s a little pissed, honestly, that they would try and gatekeep when there’s a fucking emergency, but he flies to the tower, with his lungs in his throat, because he’s terrified that someone, one of the Avengers, is going to come out of the penthouse to tell him that Tony’s dead, that he died fighting a fucking jacuzzi monster or something, and Jim’s going to have to deal with the aftermath, with this whole which is suddenly devoid of light and laughter and love and heat because Tony’s dead.

When he lands on the tarmac outside the penthouse, JARVIS begins removing his armour for him, like Jim knows that he does for Tony.

The armour disappears into the innards of the tower, but always at quick reach if either Jim or Tony want it.

“Good afternoon, Colonel Rhodes,” JARVIS says, pleasantly, when he enters the blissfully air-conditioned penthouse.

He breathes a sigh of relief, because he knows that JARVIS wouldn’t have that happy tenor to his voice if something had gone wrong, if Tony was hurt or dead and lying somewhere.

“You know, JARVIS, you can just call me Jim or Rhodey,” Jim points out, even if he knows that it won’t go anywhere.

He remembers trying to get the real Jarvis to call him by his name, and he’d called him Master Rhodes until the day he died like the perfect English butler that he was.

So, he never had much hope where JARVIS, the AI, was concerned.

He enters the elevator, and the doors close in front of him.

“Any way that you can tell me what’s going on here? Should I be worried?” Jim scuffs his foot against the tile.

“I am afraid that I have been asked by Dr. Banner to wait until you reach the medical unit,” JARVIS says, apologetically.

Jim lifts an eyebrow. “So, what, you listen to him more than you listen to me?” he asks, feeling a little affronted.

He knows that Tony likes the Avengers and all, but he’s Tony’s one and only.

“No, I do not, but I have assessed the situation for myself, and I believe that it would be better suited for you to find out in a natural way.”

Jim scowls. “Great,” he mutters under his breath.

The elevator opens out into the medical unit, and Jim steps forward.

The Avengers, minus Tony, are all gathered in the centre of the unit, in front of a door, which is clearly Tony’s room, considering the door is shut and he’s the only one who’s missing. They look up when the elevator opens, and they look a little unsure, like they don’t know how to tell him something.

“What?” Jim’s shoulders slump a little, resigned. “What happened? Where is he?”

Dr. Banner steps forward, designated as the bearer of bad news. “He’s fine,” he says, quickly.

Something eases in Jim’s chest. “Okay, so, what’s going on? What’s the emergency?”

“Well,” Dr. Banner looks back at the other Avengers, “he’s fine, but he’s also… different,” he hedges.

“Different?” Jim says, his voice going flat.

“He’s…” Dr. Banner hesitates. “Well, to give you a little context, we were in a fight–”

“Of course,” Jim says, dryly.

“We were in a fight with Thor’s brother, Loki, and he fired this… I don’t know this bolt of magic at Tony, who went down in his armour.”

The fear is bright and sharp in Jim’s chest. “Is he… is he hurt?” he demands. “Where is he? I want to see him?”

Dr. Banner puts himself between Jim and the door to Tony’s room, and Jim feels the fury boil deep in his chest, because no one, nothing can keep him from Tony, and he shouldn’t have to spend the rest of his life having to prove that to the universe.

Everyone should just know that by now.

“Move,” he says, coldly.

“You just… you need to understand what happened to him before you go in there.”

“Yeah,” Jim snorts, “I don’t give a shit if he’s got a shark head and tentacles like Cthulhu. I want to see him.”

“He’s eighteen,” a voice from behind him calls out, and his hand freezes on the handle for the door.

He turns around, and it was Rogers who said that, said that Tony was _eighteen_.

“So,” Jim drags out, “that whatever blast that Loki fired at Tony – by the way, what the hell is wrong with your brother –” He looks at Thor, who has enough grace to blush, “–that de-aged him?” he says, finishing on a dubious note.

Dr. Banner nods. “Yeah, it appears so. He’s not… he’s not only de-aged though. I mean, he doesn’t just look the way he did when he was eighteen; he also has no memories of anything beyond being eighteen. The last thing that he remembers, he was in a dorm room at MIT working on a sibling for DUM-E.”

Jim finds himself smiling. He remembers that night, the night that Tony had woken him up at three in the morning and asked him whether he thought robots could be lonely.

He thinks he fell in love with Tony that night, or maybe, it was just the night where he acknowledged that what he felt for Tony, that hodgepodge mix of feelings that felt like cotton candy in his mouth and in his chest, was _love_.

“He freaked out when he saw us. He didn’t recognise anyone but Steve, and even then, well… he doesn’t trust us, didn’t want to come back to the Tower with us, but when he heard JARVIS’ voice, he seemed better with it all,” Dr. Banner explains.

Jim nods to himself, only half-listening at this point. “I’m going to go and talk to him,” he says, firmly.

“Are you sure about that?” Agent Romanoff asks, her voice having that steady, inflectionless tone to it.

Jim raises his eyebrow. “Agent Romanoff, I’ve known Tony since I was eighteen. I think above all of you, there’s no one more qualified to deal with him when he’s like this.”

He opens the door.

The room is empty.

“He _is_ supposed to be here, right?” Jim asks, neutral and even.

The rest of the Avengers peer over his shoulders.

“We asked him to wait here, yeah,” Dr. Banner agrees, his brow furrowing.

Jim turns around. “So, wait, let me get this straight. You left an eighteen-year-old Tony Stark, who doesn’t know any of you except for Rogers, whom he absolutely wouldn’t like, which means he definitely wouldn’t trust you, in a room alone, with access to technology and basic materials and an all-powerful, all-knowing AI that is programmed to obey pretty much every order that Tony gives him, and you’re _surprised_ that he’s not right where you left him?”

The Avengers look down at their feet.

Jim rolls his eyes. “JARVIS, where’s Tony?”

“Sir is in the penthouse, currently looking for a drink.”

Jim sighs. “Of course he is.” He walks back over to the elevator. “Take me to him, would you?”

The Avengers start to follow him, and he turns around.

“I don’t think you should follow me,” he says, reasonably.

“But what if you need help–”

“Believe me, I don’t need help with Tony Stark. I’ve been dealing with him since he was fourteen and we were the only two people of colour in our class,” Jim drawls. “You can stay here. I’ll let you know if anything goes wrong, but I doubt I will.”

The Avengers look like they want to protest, but Jim slips into the elevator, and the doors shut before they can sneak in as well.

“JARVIS?”

“Yes, Colonel Rhodes?”

“Can you lock down the penthouse so that no one can get in or out?”

There’s a pause.

“Is this because you would rather that Sir not be able to leave, or because you don’t the Avengers to interrupt you?”

“Both, but more on the latter reason than anything else,” Jim replies without missing a beat.

“Very well, I have locked down the penthouse. You are quite fortunate that Sir did not learn of that particular function earlier, or I would not be able to allow you inside.”

The doors open, and Jim steps out of the elevator.

There’s a rustling behind the bar, and Jim sighs.

“Tony?”

A head peaks out over the flat of the bar, and it clenches something in his chest to see Tony like this, so young, that thick head of dark hair, dark skin, smooth without wrinkle, skin taut against his frame, and then, he straightens, displaying that smaller, leaner frame in a thin t-shirt and sweatpants.

Jim loves Tony, loves him the way he remembers him the last time they saw each other before this misadventure, loves his height and the lines around his eyes and mouth and the touch of grey in his hair and the slight pudge to his belly, but he can’t help but let his eyes drag over this Tony, the Tony from his memories, the Tony that he fell in love with, all of that wit and whirlwind in a tall, dark, thin, handsome frame.

Tony snaps his fingers, and it lurches Jim out of his stupor.

“Hey, pervert, my eyes are up here,” he says, with that fire in his voice that Jim can’t help but grin at.

“You tellin’ me you don’t recognise me, baby?” he replies, slyly.

For a second, Tony doesn’t get it, which Jim reserves all rights to lord over him once this whole de-aging mess is done with, and then, realisation dawns in his dark eyes.

“Rhodey?” Tony says, dumbfounded.

Jim stretches his arms out. “That’s me.”

Tony comes out from around the bar. “But you’re old,” he accuses.

Jim lifts an eyebrow. “Thanks for that.”

“No,” Tony sighs, sounding embarrassed, “I didn’t mean it like that. I just… I literally fell asleep next to you and you don’t look anything like–”

“–like I’m eighteen anymore?” Jim finishes. “Yeah, I wonder why.”

“Did someone do this to you?” Tony demands, approaching him with caution. “Because you can tell me. I will totally track them down and kick their ass until they reverse it, I promise.”

Jim pauses. “JARVIS, how much does he know?”

“Practically nothing, Colonel Rhodes.”

Tony’s eyebrows fly up towards his hairline. “ _Colonel_ Rhodes?”

Jim clears his throat. “Okay, uh, clearly there’s a lot that you don’t know yet. Will you just…” he trails off, “can you sit with me, over here?”

He walks over to the sofa set near the expansive window acting as one of the walls of the penthouse. After a brief moment of indecision, Tony joins him.

He doesn’t sit with him on the same sofa, which gnaws at Jim slightly, but he sits opposite to Jim so that he can look him in the eye.

“Tony, it’s 2012.”

Tony stares at him. “What are you talking about?”

“You’re thinking it’s 1988. Well, it’s not. It’s 2012,” Jim explains.

Tony’s brow furrows. “That’s… that’s not possible,” he says, carefully.

“Come on, Tony, you have a functional artificial intelligence. You’re in a penthouse on the ninety-ninth floor of the tallest building in New York City. I know you’ve looked out of the window, seen the appliances in the kitchen, hell, all over the place. You’re telling me you really think that you’re still in 2012? I mean, the biggest technological advancement that we had in 1988 was the NeXT Cube.”

Tony pauses and wrings his hands together. “So, what, I time travelled?” he demands. “Like Back to the Future?”

“Well, no.”

“So, how did eighteen-year-old me come from 1988 to 2012?” Tony prods.

“You didn’t really _come_ here, so to speak,” Jim hedges.

“Rhodey,” Tony stresses.

Jim sighs. “It’s complicated. You saw those guys downstairs.”

Tony frowns. “Yeah, I woke up in the street, in this… hunk of metal. I just figured that I’d gotten really drunk the night before, like the time we ended up on a sardine boat off the coast of Florida during spring break?”

“Well,” Jim huffs out a laugh, “that’s not exactly what happened this time. It’s 2012, and you’ve been de-aged to your eighteen-year-old self because those guys downstairs, you and them, you’re… you’re a–”

“–a barbershop quartet?” Tony offers.

“No,” Jim insists. “You’re a superhero group.”

Tony stares at him. “A superhero group?” he says, flatly. “A _superhero_ group?”

“Yeah, so, uh, you’re… you’re called Iron Man. That hunk of metal that you woke up in, it’s a weaponised suit of armour that you built a couple of years back. They call you Iron Man. Actually, you made me one too. They call me War Machine.”

Tony’s eyes snap to his. “War Machine. That’s a lot cooler than mine,” he muses. “That makes sense, I suppose, considering that you’re cooler than me. So, we, uh, we’re a superhero group, and all of those people–”

“The redhead is Natasha Romanoff; she and the short, blonde guy are secret agents. They work for this… pseudo-governmental intelligence agency called SHIELD. The tall, long-haired blonde guy is Thor, and he’s… well, he’s either an alien or a god, and it’s all very confusing, but he has this hammer that can, well, can’t be destroyed and can smash through anything. It was his brother, Loki, who did this to you. And then, there’s Bruce Banner; he’s the doctor guy.”

“He doesn’t look like he’s a superhero,” Tony says, dubiously.

“Oh, he turns into a giant green rage monster,” Jim says, simply.

“What?” Tony’s eyes go wide.

“JARVIS, could you show Tony what I’m talking about?”

A hologram appears in the space between them, and Tony gapes at the videos, the hologram, all of it, and then, he sinks back against his couch, scrubbing his hand over his face.

“The fuck,” he says, breathlessly.

“Yeah, that’s Dr. Banner,” Jim says, pointing at the Hulk.

“And that’s… that’s Captain America. What, did they stick someone else in the costume?” Tony demands.

“No, that’s…” Jim hesitates, because this is an old wound, still a bleeding wound for this Tony, “that’s actually Steve Rogers.”

“Steve Rogers is dead,” Tony says, adamantly.

“They fished him out of the ocean about a year ago,” Jim says, gently.

Tony’s lips wobble before they set in resolve. “How did Howard take it? I bet he was all over that,” he says, derisively. “The love of his life back from the dead.”

“Tony–” Jim breaks off, because he would give anything to not do this, to have this happen a second time.

Tony reads it in his face. “He’s dead, isn’t he?” he says, heavily, knowingly. He scrubs his hand over his face, and Jim can see a glimmer of unshed tears in his eyes. “It makes sense. After all, he’d be like ninety if he were still alive. I’m pretty sure guys who drink the way he does don’t live to be ninety.” He clears his throat, pulling that invisible shield around himself, as though emotional can’t touch him. “And Amma? Is she around somewhere? I mean, she was only in her twenties when she had me. So, she’d only be in like her sixties, right?”

“Tony,” Jim says, softly.

Tony’s face cracks wide open, showing the grief of a boy who loved his mother and has to come to the sudden, brutal realisation that he’ll never see her again.

“How?” he whispers.

“It was a… a car accident, when you were twenty-one. Your father was driving; he was drunk, and he, well, he crashed the car into a tree. They didn’t survive.”

Tony sucks in an unsteady breath that sounds more like a sob than anything else. “And Jarvis?” he says, hopefully, even if he knows that it’s not possible, even if he’s aware that Jarvis was his father’s age, and if his father is dead, then, Jarvis must be dead too.

“Not in the same accident, but around five or so years after your parents died,” Jim tells him, gravely.

Tony nods to himself, staring straight out of the window. “So,” his voice is rough, thick, like he’s barely resisting the urge to cry, “this Loki guy brought me to this time or turned Present Me into Young Me, to a future where I’m a superhero who fights… aliens and magic people with a weaponised suit of armour. Captain America is alive. My parents are dead. Jarvis is dead. And technology is… fucking freaky.”

“To be fair, the reason why technology is fucking freaky is because of you,” Jim murmurs.

Tony flashes him the edge of a strained smile. “And us? Are we… dead too, Rhodey?”

“No,” Jim says, firmly. “We’ve been going strong for almost twenty-five years now.”

Tony’s throat flexes.

“That’s not something that’s gonna end,” Jim promises. “We’re in this for the long run.”

“Good,” Tony says, softly, and the look in his eyes is like a shift in the centre of Jim’s gravity, pulling him down.

Well, to be fair, Tony’s eyes always have that effect on him.

* * *

That night, he’s lying in bed, when there’s a knock on his door.

“Who is it, JARVIS?” he asks, frowning.

“It’s Sir, Colonel Rhodes.”

“Oh, okay, let him in.”

The door slides open, and Tony is standing there, in a pair of sweatpants and a tank that is a little big on him.

“Tony, is everything okay?”

“Why are we sleeping apart?” Tony asks, bluntly.

Jim stares at him, open-mouthed, for a moment. “I didn’t think… I thought… maybe, after the day you’ve had, you might want to be on your own,” he says, carefully.

“Why?”

“Because you’re eighteen, and you’ve just found yourself in a future that you don’t particularly like because an alien god has a grudge because you beat the shit out of him a couple of months ago?” Jim offers.

“You’re right. I don’t particularly like it,” Tony says, sauntering inside, climbing onto the bed. “I hate it, actually. My parents are dead. Jarvis is dead. I stopped making weapons, which is actually pretty good, but I handed a company over to a woman who is arguably very capable, but it’s still my company, the company I thought would be mine one day. Aunt Peggy is in a facility because she has Alzheimer’s disease. Sharon is… Sharon is a secret agent and not a three-year-old. But do you know what the silver lining is, honeybear?”

Jim’s throat flexes, when Tony sidles up to him, throwing his leg over Jim’s. “What?” he says, his voice slightly strangled.

“I still have you. I will _always_ have you,” Tony murmurs and then, kisses him, kisses him until Jim is going delirious with the sensation.

Jim groans into Tony’s mouth, and his arm comes up to sling around Tony’s shoulders, kissing him deeper, sliding his tongue into Tony’s mouth. Tony straddles him, his knees on either side, of Jim’s hips, and Jim’s hands find their way there too, sliding up underneath the tank top, over Tony’s ribs.

“No, wait,” Jim gasps, pulling away.

“What?” Tony murmurs, his voice at a whine. “What is it?”

“You’re eighteen.”

“Yeah, and?”

“It’s not… it’s not right,” Jim says, carefully.

Tony sighs, his eyes rolling upwards to catch the ceiling. “Honeybear, are we having this discussion again?” he asks, frustration bleeding into his voice. “We already dealt with this when you were stressing about the age difference.”

“Yeah, but that was a three-year age difference, and this is like a twenty-seven-year age difference. They’re very different,” Jim insists.

“I don’t care,” Tony says, stubbornly. “I’m eighteen. I’m old enough. I’m an adult. I’m above the age of consent. I’m capable of making my own decisions, and my decision is that I want to have sex with you.”

“Tony–”

“Rhodey,” Tony’s voice is soft, unbearably soft, “I’m not a child. I want you, I want you the same way that I wanted you before all of this happened, when I fell asleep with you. I want you the same way that I know that you wanted me before any of this happened.”

He tangles their fingers together, presses their joined hands to his heart, which thumps under his chest.

“I already know that I’m going to spend the rest of my life with you,” Tony says, with immaculate confidence. “I know that because you’re here, because you say that we’re a forever thing, and that’s what I want. I want you forever. I’m eighteen. I’m not a child. Don’t treat me like a child.”

Jim sits up. “You really don’t have a problem with this?” he asks, breathlessly.

His hand rubs at Tony’s rubs, back and forth.

“You really want to do this?”

Tony kisses him, kisses him until Jim’s lungs are burning. “I want to do this. I want to have sex with you. I know exactly what I’m doing. I don’t care if you’re twenty-seven years older than me in this body; it’s still you, and it’s still me. That’s all that matters.”

Jim swallows hard, a knot burning in his throat. “You promise?” he says, his voice fierce. “You promise that you’re okay with this?”

“Yes, yes, I am,” Tony moans and rubs up against him.

Fuck, he can feel the length of Tony’s cock rubbing up against his belly.

He groans, dragging Tony’s mouth to his, muffling all of the sounds they make. Tony writhes in his lap, clutching at his shoulders, grinding down on his hips. He takes off his shirt first, and Jim runs his hands over Tony’s chest, his belly, the barely-there hair on his chest, the swell of his hips, the flat, muscled belly that he remembers from years and years they’d spent together in that dorm room in MIT.

Jim isn’t wearing a shirt, and he’s only in boxers, which leaves him incredibly accessible for Tony, especially when he slides one of those hands past the waistband to curl around his cock. Jim grunts into the ground and feels himself swell up.

Tony hums, a smile spreading across his lips. “I’ve missed this,” he drawls, a wicked light in his eyes.

Jim’s chuckle chokes off into a moan when Tony starts stroking. “If I remember correctly, around this time, we were pretty much having sex every night. I don’t know what you’ve been missing,” he retorts.

“I miss you. I miss you constantly,” Tony says, innocently. “Sometimes, when you’re at class, I touch myself in our bed. I finger myself until I come to the thought of you inside me or me inside you.”

Jim throws his head back, especially when Tony decides to shuffle his way down the length of his body, mouthing at his cock through the thin silk material of his boxers.

“Wait, wait,” he gasps.

Tony stops immediately, peering up at him through those dark eyes of his, rimmed with long, thick lashes.

“What is it?” he says, worriedly. Tony sits up. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No, uh,” Jim shifts a little in embarrassment, even if the flush won’t necessarily show on his face, “I just… I just think that we should move onto the main event, so to speak. I, uh, I only have one in me, and I think we should… be careful in how we spend it.”

Tony’s eyes dawn with realisation, and then, his smile grows. “I’m really okay with that,” he murmurs. “Do we have the stuff here?”

“Uh…” Jim feels around in the drawer of the bedside table, before he manages to pull out a little tube of lubricant. “Success, it appears.”

“Fantastic.”

Tony takes the tube from Jim. He climbs to his feet, bouncing slightly on the mattress, looming over Jim, who stares at the height of him, the beauty of him. Tony smirks and shoves down his sweatpants and underwear, before he kicks it off the mattress, blissfully naked when he settles in Jim’s lap again.

“Would you like to do the honours?” Tony asks, waving the lube around.

Jim hesitates. “Yeah, actually, I would,” he replies, trying very hard to hide his eagerness.

Tony’s lips twitch, and he pushes the lube into Jim’s hand. He pops the lid open and squeezes out a dollop onto his fingers, just as Tony leans back onto the palms of his hands, spreading his knees wide, so that Jim can see his cock, curving against his belly and the furled skin of his rim.

Tony gasps, shuddering down to his fingers and his toes, when Jim slides a finger inside him. He bears down on him, his inner muscles clenching desperately around Jim’s finger, and it makes Jim’s cock twitch, imagining that clench around its length.

“You’re so pretty,” Jim murmurs, his eyes hot as he drags over the length of Tony’s body seated in his lap. “God, I love you.”

Tony sucks in a deep, unsteadying breath, a whine building up in his throat, when Jim thrusts his finger shallowly before adding a second.

“This is… this is like a thing for you, isn’t it?” he manages to push out between his clenched teeth.

“What?” Jim’s brow furrows.

“The eighteen-year-old thing? You’re getting off on me looking like a twink, aren’t you?” Tony’s makes a sweet, needy noise that curls the heat in Jim’s belly.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jim says, flatly.

He twists and crooks his fingers, and Tony’s voice tapers off into a thready whine, the tendons in his throat taut against the skin.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Tony curses. “Okay, that’s enough stretching. Just get inside me, would you?” He lifts his head. “By the way, we are not done with this kink conversation.”

Jim wraps his fingers around his cock, and Tony’s eyes are hungry on him. Tony shifts, centring himself on Jim’s lap, and he can feel the lube leak out onto his thighs, so that he knows that Tony is sufficiently stretched, sloppy between his legs and ready for his cock. Jim fists his cock once, then, twice, and he’s pressing the head of his cock against Tony’s rim.

Tony grunts, setting his teeth on Jim’s shoulder, the point of pain sending shockwaves down his spine.

Jim shifts his hips, and he’s fully inside his body, and Tony is gripping him like a vice, like he always does. Tony drapes his arms around Jim’s shoulders, and he begins to rise and fall on Jim’s cock, Jim jutting his hips at the same time to make it easier for him.

Sweat pools everywhere, at the napes of their necks, on their chest and belly, between their legs, under the knees, and Jim grips his hips, hands fitting perfectly into the soft indents of Tony’s hips. He ruts into him, relishing the hot, sweet flex of Tony’s rim around his cock.

It’s wet and hot and the smell of sex is all around him, and God, Jim loves him, loves Tony like this, loves Tony like the way he always is, loves Tony in any and all iteration, and could spend the rest of his life doing this, if only his libido would allow it.

He fucks Tony with unbridled enthusiasm, and Tony angles his hips, so that his cock grinds against Tony’s prostate on each down stroke, each new pulse of pleasure ricocheting through his body making him make that high, desperate noise against Jim’s throat.

Jim’s hands tighten around Tony’s waist to the point of bruising, and he’s filling Tony deeper, rougher, grunting with each roll of his hips, everything so hot and wet as Tony flutters around him. Tony wraps his hand around his own cock, and Jim bats it away.

“Come on my cock,” he drawls, his voice brooking no argument.

Tony’s pupils are blown wide. “Yeah, yeah,” he says, breathlessly, squirming unthinkingly on Jim’s cock.

Jim snaps his hips forward, and Tony comes, panting against Jim’s throat, teeth sharp against his pulse point, like he could bite down and draw blood at any point in time. Jim twists them, so that Tony’s on his back, Jim is between his legs, and thrusts, thrusts, thrusts, until he’s coming, the pleasure tearing through him like a knife as he feels Tony throb and clench around him. His rhythm stutters and falters, as his world narrows and sharpens into a tight little point before bursting apart in a thousand pieces in some suspended reality that isn’t theirs.

When he slides free of Tony, Tony is already leaking his come, chest rising and falling as he tries to catch his breath. Jim leans over and presses his mouth to Tony’s, firm and steady, and Jim can feel Tony’s cock twitch against his hip.

“Ah, to be young,” he teases, landing on his back beside Tony.

Tony doesn’t hesitate to curl up against his side, slinging an arm around Jim’s waist, their legs tangling together, all hot and sweaty and perfect and _his_. Jim kisses the crown of his head, the tuft of his dark hair tickling his face.

Tony rubs his cheek against the smattering of hair on Jim’s chest. “That was very good. I think you got better with age,” he insists.

Jim laughs and kisses him again (honestly, he could do this all day, all year, all the years). “I’ll try to take that as a compliment.”

“It is, it is.”

Tony pauses. “Does it… does it always feel like this?” he wonders out loud. “The way I feel about you?”

Jim grins, his head tipping forward so that his chin brushes his collarbone. “It… changes but it doesn’t become _less_ if that’s what you’re worried about,” he replies, running his knuckles down Tony’s cheek. “I… you become important to me the day that we met in that classroom on our first day, remember? You were the only one who would sit with me, and it kind of made sense that we gravitated towards each other.”

“It wasn’t because you were black and I was mixed,” Tony says, earnestly. “It was because you were the smartest person in that class other than me. Who else was I going to gravitate to?”

Jim snorts. “Thanks for that, but yeah, I… you were important to me, then, and I fell in love with you, and it was easy. Surprisingly, you fell in love with me too–”

Tony huffs. “I don’t know why it’s surprising. I mean, have you _seen_ you or heard you talk about orbital mechanics; it’s like…” he makes a wavy sign with his hands, “it’s like the hottest thing I’ve ever heard. I could have sex with your brain.”

“Okay, _that’s_ definitely not my kink,” Jim declares but softens it with a smacking kiss against Tony’s cheek, which makes Tony smile. “We fell in love, and look, I’m not going to lie, Tony. Shit happened from when you’re eighteen to when you’re forty-two, and it was hard. There were a lot of times that were hard.”

He thinks of Afghanistan, of waking up in a hospital bed, his body bruised and sore all over, the heavy, vibrating way of the gun still phantom in his hands, and expecting to see Tony sitting at his bedside with some stupid quip about kissing it all better, even if he knows that they have to keep everything that’s _them_ to themselves, only to be told by his superiors that Tony was gone, that he was missing and that all signs pointed to _dead_ , as though someone could do that, someone could steal Tony from this universe without having to fucking fight _him_ first.

He thinks of trudging through that damn desert for three months, how much he hated the heat and the sand and his skin blistering in uncomfortable places, always thinking that he was too late, that Tony was lying dead somewhere and there was no fucking way that Jim would ever be able to reach him, that one day, he’d just trip over Tony’s mutilated, broken corpse by accident, and Jim would have to take _that_ home, that faded, empty body of Tony’s to burn (because that’s what Tony would have wanted, he would’ve wanted his body to burn and for Jim to light the pyre the way that his people do), knowing that he’d failed, failed someone who loved him more than anything, who would have died and killed for him without a second’s hesitation.

He thinks of all those months when Tony was sick or hiding something from him, either to do with what was happening with Stark Industries or with the palladium poisoning, sleeping in a bed with someone who seemed like a stranger, who talked in monosyllables and smiled like he was sad and tired and there was something wrong that he wanted to say and couldn’t say, and it had driven Jim crazy, wanting to grab Tony by the shoulders and shake him until he spilled his guts but also knowing that it would mean more if Tony came to him – after the second time that Tony almost died because he kept keeping his mouth shut, Jim and Tony had a massive fight that ended in some much-needed comfort for both of them; they didn’t even have make-up sex which was a first for them.

He thinks of the long stretch of an hour where Tony called him to tell him that he was carrying a nuclear bomb through a wormhole into space because there were actual aliens invading New York, and Tony couldn’t wait for him, wait for him so that they could do this together, and Jim had to continue breathing, which seemed like such a waste of fucking everything, continue flying, until he found out that Tony was alive and well and exhausted as hell from his one-and-only foray into space and brief death.

Jim didn’t sleep that night – he remembers staring at Tony’s sleeping face, memorising each line and curve and colour, because there was an entire fucking hour of his life where he thought Tony was dead, that mechanical, stunted edge of Tony’s voice telling him goodbye was the last thing that he would hear from the man he loves, until dawn was slanting against those massive one-way glass windows that assuaged Tony’s voyeurism and desire for privacy in equal measure; and then, he remembers letting the rest of the Avengers know about their relationship in a very obvious, and it didn’t help that Tony walked into the kitchen without a shirt on and hickeys all over his chest and clearly going lower than the waistband of his sweatpants.

It might have defended delicate sensibilities, but who gives a fuck because it’s _Tony’s_ penthouse.

“It was hard, a lot of those times,” Jim says, softly, “but when I’m here, we go to bed together. We’re still together all of these years. It’s been hell getting here, and yeah, sure, there were times where I did think that we wouldn’t make it, and I think if your future self was here too, he’d say the same thing. But we made it, and we’re good, and we’re strong, and we’re like an old married couple, which is really where we wanted to be. I mean, it still pisses me off that you don’t wrap up the chips packets so that the chips get soft, and you hate that you get a drink and I always have to have like half of it because I can’t be bothered getting my own, but it works for us.”

He can’t help the smile that stretches across his mouth, the way that his teeth show.

“It works for us; we’re happy,” he says, definitively.

Tony kisses him, open-mouthed and happy, like there’s too much emotion flooding through his body and this is the best use for all of it. Jim doesn’t know what else to do, and honestly, couldn’t be fucked doing anything else, but hold him tight against his body, kiss him back thoroughly and with fervour, even if he can’t exactly get it up for a second time for a couple of hours. Tony releases him and presses his cheek to the thud of Jim’s heart, so that Jim can tangle his fingers in Tony’s thick hair.

Jim presses a kiss to the top of Tony’s head. It’s been a while since he could do this, since he could touch Tony like this, and eighteen or forty-two, he always loved touching Tony like this, like Tony’s his.

“I’m glad,” Tony says, his voice muffled by Jim’s breastbone. “I’m glad that we’re still a _we_. I’m glad,” he clears his throat, shifting slightly, “I’m glad we’re happy.”

Jim doesn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around Tony’s smaller, leaner frame (around two decades ago, they had to adjust, when Tony shot up like a weed and now towered over Jim by about two inches, but Tony always liked being the little spoon, even if he was now taller than Jim), and they fall asleep like that.

Jim wakes up with a jaw-cracking yawn, and there’s a heavier weight splayed on top of him.

Tony makes a muffled noise against his chest, restored to his forty-two-year-old self. “God, what truck hit me?” he mutters, his voice sleep-rough.

Jim stares down at him, fondly. “You really don’t remember what happened yesterday, do you?”

Tony rolls onto his back and twists his head, a lazy smile on his face. “You had sex with twink me?”

Jim groans, slinging his forearm over his forehead. “Seriously, that’s your takeaway from all of this?”

Tony laughs, and Jim, God, Jim loves that laugh, loves that rough, whiskey laugh of Tony’s. Tony shifts onto his side, and his hand flattens over Jim’s belly, his thumb dragging back and forth over the sparse trail of hair there.

“Come on, you can’t deny that it was a pretty surreal experience. Hell, I would have been offended if you didn’t take the opportunity,” Tony insists.

“And you’re, what, you’re okay with the idea of me having sex with you in your eighteen-year-old body?”

Tony shrugs as much as his position on the bed will allow him to. “I mean, I know what I was like at eighteen. I was crazy in love with you, much like I am right now.” He waggles his eyebrows, making Jim grin. “I know that I would’ve had sex with you in a heartbeat.” He pauses. “And because I know _you_ , I know that you’re freaking out that you took advantage of me. Need I remind you that the first time that I had penetrative sex was when I was thirteen.”

Jim feels the scowl tugging at his mouth. “Don’t remind me,” he grumbles.

“Is it because I’m _yours_?” Tony taunts with a teasy smile.

“No, it’s because – well, I mean, yeah, a bit – but it’s mainly because the first time that you had penetrative sex, you had it with a guy who hurt you in all the ways that someone could hurt another person,” Jim says, carefully.

Tony sighs, and there it is, the old wound on his face that belongs surely and sorely to Tiberius Stone. “Fair enough,” he murmurs. “But what I meant was that I was hardly a blushing maiden when I came to MIT, and I sure as hell wasn’t one when we started seeing each other.”

“Yeah, and I had issues there too. I mean, that was like a three-year age difference, and this was more than two decades,” Jim says, defensively. “Of course I was concerned that I was taking advantage of you.”

Tony’s brow furrows, and he shuffles closer to Jim. “I love you, in any and all the bodies that I’m ever going to have. You don’t need to worry about taking advantage, because one, you’re a good guy, the best I’ve ever known or will ever know, and two, he didn’t see it like that, and neither do I. It was fun and hot and I was totally consenting to everything, and besides, it’s not even the kinkiest thing that we’ve done together.”

Jim closes his eyes. Some things are better left in the past.

“Don’t remind me.”

He sits up, watching Tony.

“Okay, so, question, what would you do if you were faced with an eighteen-year-old me?” he asks, curiously.

“I would fuck you into the mattress,” Tony replies, without missing a beat, his entire expression guileless. He pauses. “Only if you wanted it, of course, and it should never be a judgment on how I feel about you now, because eighteen or eighty, I love you the same way.”

Jim laughs. “I love you. Have I told you that today?”

“No, you haven’t, and honestly, you could stand to say it more,” Tony says, haughtily.

Jim growls, playfully, and twists them so that he’s on top of Tony.

Tony lifts an eyebrow. “Twice in twelve hours. My, my, Colonel Rhodes, you do like me, after all.”

“I love you,” Jim corrects. “There’s a difference.” He kisses him, long and tender. “Okay, I regret not cleaning up last night, so, I really need a shower.”

Jim climbs off the bed, and Tony stretches out across the enormous mattress like a cat, arms and legs splayed in every which way.

“I have had an exhausting last twenty-four hours, so I’m going to get a lot more sleep than I just had,” Tony says, yawning.

Jim lifts an eyebrow. “Are you really sure that sleep’s what you need right now?”

Tony looks at Jim, drags his eyes over his naked frame. He sighs and climbs out of bed. “How do you know me so well?”

Jim steers Tony into the bathroom, hands on Tony’s hips. “Oh, I have had a _lot_ of practice in my day. You’re topping this time, though. I don’t think I have it in me to top twice in twelve hours.”

“Why did we have to get old?” Tony pauses. “Maybe I should build–”

“No, Tony, just…” Jim sighs. “No.”

“You didn’t even let me finish,” Tony argues, as he switches on the shower.

“I already know it’s going to be a stupid idea. _No_.”

There’s a pause.

“You were going to say, _you’re not the boss of me_ , weren’t you?” Jim says, knowingly.

There’s another pause.

“Oh, fuck off,” Tony mutters.

Jim just laughs and kisses him again, both of stepping under the spray, all bodies and water and heat.


End file.
